U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,699 (to Union Carbide) describes alloys comprising from about 2 to about 98 weight percent of a poly(arylene sulfide) and from about 98 to about 2 weight percent of a poly(aryl ketone) which exhibit a good combination of properties. In particular, they display a higher strength than would be expected from the weight average constituent values. On page 4, 1. 40-42 of US'699, it is mentioned that the alloys may further contain an aromatic polysulfone, an aromatic polycarbonate or an aromatic polyhydroxyether, and example 5 describes a ternary alloy composed of 30 wt. % poly(ether ether ketone), 30 wt. % poly(phenylene sulfide) and 40% bisphenol A polysulfone. The binary and ternary alloys of US'699 suffer notably from poor toughness related properties, including a low impact resistance and a low tensile elongation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,081 (to Phillips Petroleum) describes ternary polymer alloys containing at least one of a poly(aryl ketone) and a poly(aryl sulfone), a poly(arylene sulfide) and a poly(amide imide). Besides, US'081 exemplifies also certain homogenous physical blends prepared by mixing a poly(phenylene sulfide) with a poly(ether ether ketone) and a polyether sulfone. Again, the ternary alloys of US'081 suffer notably from poor toughness related properties, including a low impact resistance and a low tensile elongation.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,151,138 (to Kureha) describes resin compositions comprising a resin component containing 40 to 99% by mass of a poly(aryl ketone), 1 to 60% by mass of a poly(arylene sulfide) and 0.1 to 5 parts by mass par 100 parts by mass of the resin component of at least one thermosetting imide resin (emphasis added on “thermosetting”) selected from the group of a polyfunctional unsaturated imide compound and a thermoset product thereof, such as bisallylnagiimide BANI-M, BANI-X and BANI-H resins. As the result of the incorporation of that thermosetting imide resin, the compositions of US'138 exhibit improved compatibility, improved moldability, improved melt flowability and improved mechanical properties, especially tensile strength and bending strength; based on the results of table 1, the tensile elongation and/or the Izod impact strength of certain exemplified resin compositions might also be very slightly improved when compared to the corresponding binary blends without the thermosetting imide resin, but the improvement, if any, is so low that apparently Kureha did not deem appropriate to comment on it in any manner. The thermosetting imide resins of US'138 are high specialty polymers; they are expensive and have limited availability. In addition, because of their thermosetting nature, their blending with molten poly(aryl ketone) and molten poly(arylene sulfide) is more delicate, as the chemical nature of the blend changes substantially when subject to heating; besides, thermoset imide resins, when incorporated after thermosetting (as used in example 6), require by essence a preliminary curing step, and are more difficultly incorporated to poly(aryl ketone)-poly(arylene sulfide) blends as they are not melt processible as such.
Similarly, CN 1,186,819 (to the Changchun Institute Applied Chemistry) describes the use of an alcohol solution of a thermoset imide monomer to coat a polyphenyl thioether homogeneously. A poly(aryl ether ketone)-poly(phenyl thioether) material is prepared, wherein the polyimide is synthesized and coupled at 150° C.-250° C. to increase the compatibility between the phases of the poly(phenyl thioether) and the poly(aryl ether ketone).
Still within the same framework, the same Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry published in 2000 a technical paper in Gongcheng Suliao Yingyong, 28(11), pages 1-3 directed to the thermal and mechanical properties and morphological structures of blends of a very particular poly(aryl ether ketone) known as phenolphtalein poly(ether ketone) or cardo-PEK (PEK-C) with a poly(phenylene sulfide). The blends may further include 1%˜2% (wt.) of a “Polymerization of Monomeric Reactant” PMR-POI polyimide.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,289 (to Amoco Corp.) describes a composition having increased crystallization rates comprising (a) from about 98 to about 99.9 percent by weight of a miscible blend comprising a poly(aryl ether ketone) and at least one amorphous polymer selected from the group consisting of polyetherimide, poly(amide-imide) and polyimide, and (b) from about 0.1 to about 2 percent by weight of a poly(arylene sulfide) homo- or copolymer, as crystallization aid. The composition of example 1 is composed of 49.5 wt. % of a poly(ether ether ketone), 49.5 wt. % of a poly(ether imide) and 1 wt. % of a poly(phenylene sulfide). Notwithstanding the presence of a small amount of poly(phenylene sulfide) in the poly(aryl ether ketone)-poly(ether imide) alloys of US'289, these ones are far from displaying the good combination of properties, in particular the high strength, of the poly(aryl ether ketone)-poly(aryl sulfide) alloys of US'699. Also, their toughness-related properties may be not high as desirable.
There remains a strong need for a polymer material that would substantially retain the beneficial of properties of the poly(aryl ether ketone)-poly(aryl sulfide) blends of the prior art, in particular (i) their high strength, (ii) their easiness to be melt processed, and (iii) their cost-attractive, while exhibiting substantially improved toughness-related properties (such as a substantially increased impact resistance and/or a substantially higher tensile elongation at break) and/or a substantially increased heat deflection temperature.